


Glimbowweek Winter 2020

by HaroThar



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Childhood Friends, Comedy, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Glimbow Ship Week, Glimbow week, Making Up, Public Display of Affection, Ship Week, Tags to be added as week progresses, arguing and making up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-26
Updated: 2020-02-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:08:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22903741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HaroThar/pseuds/HaroThar
Summary: For glimbowweek on tumblr!
Relationships: Bow/Glimmer (She-Ra)
Comments: 26
Kudos: 62





	1. Childhood Friends

To be a princess, at least, to be a princess in a country with a Runestone, meant having magic. Over the course of the princess’s life, that magic would strengthen, with practice, and would take on new forms, with creativity and diligence. At the age of nine, Glimmer was not particularly practiced, and while she was definitely creative, she did not yet have the diligence to form new modes of magic, as she would likely start to do in her late adolescence and early adulthood. As such, she only had a single power: sparkles.

But sparkles were enough to impress her cool new friend, Bow, who was already ten and knew how to shoot _arrows._ It was so cool. Glimmer was determined to show him how cool she could be, too. And also play with him, because he was a friend and she liked having one of those. 

“Are you sure?” Bow asked her, staring out of her window at the long, long string of bedsheets and towels and capes and stuff they’d tied together.

“We’re not gonna get out past the guards through the hallways,” Glimmer pointed out, “c’mon! I do this aaaaall the time,” she said with a flip of her hand. 

“I just don’t think that looks very safe…” Bow said, he glanced at the door. “Though, you’re probably right.” He lifted his hand contemplatively to his chin, and Glimmer rocked back on her heels.

“I’ll go first, that way you’ll know!” she said, hopping up on the window sill.

“M-maybe I will,” Bow said, “Since I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“I won’t get hurt!” Glimmer huffed. “I told you, I go out the back way all the time!” And without waiting for any further argument, Glimmer grabbed onto the first sheet and began sliding down. Bow watched nervously, but, as she continued to descend without incident, excitedly. When she landed, he lost the last of his reservations, and grabbed onto it himself. He slid down, feeling reckless, dangerous, a little stupid. 

“That was SO COOL,” Bow said when he landed, sharing twin smiles with Glimmer, who was beaming. 

“I know, right! C’mon, let’s go!” She grabbed his hand and tugged him along, rushing away from the palace into Bright Moon’s capitol city. It was late afternoon, early evening, some time that rode that line. Merchants were peddling their goods, friends leaned on each other’s fences and sides to chat or gossip, and other children ran about, freed from their schooling, so Glimmer and Bow blended right in. 

“What do we want to do first?” Glimmer asked, her gaze caught by a shiny display of earrings and necklaces.

“I dunno,” Bow said, eyes flicking from this to that to the other. “I grew up in the woods; I haven’t really been in a big city for very long.” Bow gasped suddenly and grabbed onto Glimmer’s dress, tugging at her and pointing. “What’s _that?”_

“A… boarding school?” Glimmer said, confused. She briefly summarized that eleven year olds would get sent away to boarding schools to live there and visit their families over break, and that’s why there were so many kids there. The Bright Moon School For Bright Minds wasn’t exactly popular in Etheria, but they had gotten a couple of transfers from allied countries each year, especially if the child showed a proficiency for “polisci,” which Glimmer wasn’t entirely sure what the word meant but it sounded impressive. No one really sent their kids over borders anymore, though. Too dangerous with the Horde.

“That looks so fun,” Bow commented, and Glimmer snorted. She wasn’t of the opinion that “school” and “fun” could really be put in the same sentence.

“Come on, let’s go do something exciting!” Glimmer prompted, tugging on his wrist. She was out of the castle and she wanted to _do_ things! So they did. They bought jelly-coated tree nuts and tossed them into each other’s mouths, Bow’s aim impeccable, Glimmer’s… decent. They played tag in the streets, ducking under carts and stalls and tall women with baskets balanced on their hips and heads. They stared at jewelry and figurines and little wooden trinkets, eyes wide and filled with wonder. But then, inevitably, they had to go home. Bow walked Glimmer back to the low ravine that protected Bright Moon Castle’s back end, the long line of sheets and cloth waving in the breeze, as though sadly. 

“I’ll be back again,” Bow promised, like he always promised. And so Glimmer extended her pinky finger, like she always extended, and Bow took it, like he always took it, and they shook on it with a bold, serious, and surefire nod, like they always nodded. It was a certainty that came with childhood, which they did not know, and a certainty that came with the truest form of love, which they would one day learn. To come back, over and over. To wait, again and again. To look up, to look down, and to smile, reunited, the way two souls intertwined were meant to smile, here at the beginning of where their paths braided invariably together.


	2. Making Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Who's ready for some post s4 feels?

It had been a long week. 

It had been a long year, hell, a long life. Neither of them were born when the Horde first started its siege upon Etheria; neither of them knew anything but this. But the last week, the last month, if Bow was being honest, had probably been the worst. In the wake of Angella’s death (their mother. Both of them. Glimmer’s by blood, and Bow’s, by something a little more nameless) relationships had grown--strained. No one in Glimmer’s family had ever been good at mourning. Bow couldn’t claim he was much better.

Putting on a happy face had only made it worse, in hindsight. Then there was the whole _thing_ with Adora, and Glimmer had pulled away, acted like she didn’t need them anymore--didn’t need Bow, anymore. And Bow understood, now, why Glimmer acted the way she did during Princess Prom. It was one thing to know that Glimmer was queen and didn’t have to tell her friends every official decision she made. It was another to feel so starkly, suddenly, abruptly on the outside, with no way back in. 

But, even counting when the Black Garnet literally screwed over all planetary weather, Bow could say with full confidence that they’d made it through bad storms before, and they’d make it through this one too.

“Hey, Glimmer,” he said, voice as tired as he actually felt, for once not trying to hide it even slightly behind forced smiles or false cheer. Glimmer turned, looked at him, something raw on her face alongside the confusion.

Maybe this was all that had been needed.

Maybe it just took being honest, in the simple, uneasy way they knew how to be. Bow extended his hand to her, the one he’d pulled from her grasp with harsh words, the one that had held hers while he’d stared her in the eye, worries overflowing but mid-fight, unable to soothe either of their souls. This hand had come to rest on her angry, feisty, bullrushing shoulder more times than he could count. This hand had clung to her waist when she’d teleported them out of pickles and hard places and tough situations. 

This hand fit neatly into hers, as she hooked her thumb between his index finger and his own, and squeezed her fingers along the underside of his palm.

“It’s been a long day,” Bow said, lifting his other hand to her cheek, caressing her face, her precious face, so often screwed up in anger, but just as often alight with excitement, thrill, the heady rush of adrenaline before making a decision only half-thought. He thumbed along the shadow beneath her eye, dark and sleepless.

Glimmer’s hand came to his cheek, in turn, and he felt her mimic the motion. He was tired, too. They both were. They all were. But in that moment, Bow was done caring about anyone except the two of them. Everyone else could--for _one_ night--sort out their own shit. Right now he had Glimmer, his Glimmer, burning so bright and hot beneath his palms, and he didn’t want to think about Etheria or the Horde or anyone else.

“I’ve missed you,” Glimmer said, her voice gone small and quiet like it only did when she was trying very, very hard not to cry.

 _So why do you keep pulling away from us? So why won’t you tell me anything? Why do you keep pushing me out?_ went unsaid, his anger and hurt burned out, burned down to nothing but ash and embers and cinders put out with wet tears.

“I’ve missed you too,” he said, choking on his first sob, and then he was back in her arms, where he was meant to be, and she was in his, and they fit together so perfectly, like pieces interlocking, and he marvelled at how they’d ever been separated in the first place. They cried until Glimmer was sniffling and wiping at her face and trying to keep herself from it, hating how crying felt and how it always gave her a headache.

“C’mon,” she said, her hand slipping back into his, stepping back but not away. “Let’s go to bed. We could both use some sleep.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments/Concrit welcome!


	3. Confessions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *cocks a gun at DT* fess up

“Glimmer, you’re so pretty when you’re posed like that,” Bow mentioned, cheek propped up in his palm, half draped on the couch near the door. She cast him a smile over her shoulder, her stance broad, solid, her hand outstretched in front of her, violet magic dancing off her fingertips.

“UGHHHH,” Double Trouble groaned again, resettling themself on their oversized chair and grumbling under their breath. The truth spell passed over them with little more than a squinted wink on their part, but to Glimmer’s credit, she wasn’t overly focused. Not with Bow in the room, making doting eyes at her and spewing his _endless_ drivel of affection and praise. Not when she had ample opportunity to show off the soft curve of her muscles, thick with exercise and rounded with charming fat, while Bow kept up his insipid prattling.

“Will you two get _on_ with it already?” Double Trouble all but shouted, losing their composure. “Everyone in Etheria knows you two are in love, just get it over with!”

They didn’t like the intensity with which Glimmer snapped her head and stared at them. They didn’t like the look in her eye. They knew, of course, that she smelled weakness, that she was about to cause problems, because they made that exact face all the time. They didn’t care to be on the receiving end of it.

“Oh,” Glimmer said, sounding delighted. Bow was sitting up a little straighter, confused but clearly ready to roll with whatever she was about to say or do. “Does this _bother_ you, Double Trouble?”

Oh no.

Oh no, they _had_ shown weakness.

“Do you not like it when we…” Glimmer said, sounding malicious, and their tail flicked agitatedly. She plopped herself down on Bow’s lap, and the dweeb was grinning at her with _disgusting_ adoration all over his face. “...publicly display our affection?”

“So you two _are_ together, then?” Double Trouble asked, trying to gain purchase, find a way to wriggle their way out of the situation. They didn’t like the way she was wiggling her eyebrows at them. They didn’t like it when she turned her gaze back on Bow, and the two shared terrible, cahoot-like grins. 

“Oh, we’re suuuuuper together,” Glimmer said with a flip of her hand (her flair for drama was one of the only things Double Trouble respected about this godforsaken pastel palace).

“Oh yeah,” Bow said, hand idly slipping over her hip and thumbing at her muffin top (was he even aware he was doing it? God they were repulsive). “The most together.”

“We hug, and cuddle,” Glimmer listed off blithely.

“Fall asleep on top of each other, hang out in Glimmer’s room alllll alone when we have nowhere better to be,” Bow contributed. Double Trouble felt themself gag. They fell asleep together? Just, casually? Nothing naughty as a precursor? UGH!

“And sometimes…” Glimmer said, trailing her fingers along Bow’s jaw, making Double Trouble’s nose wrinkle with disgust, “we…” she leaned in, and Bow tilted his head, and Double Trouble became suddenly, vividly aware that they were about to watch the two of them _kiss._

“I yield!” Double Trouble shouted, scrambling up the back of the oversized chair, “I’ll tell you anything you want! Just, ugh, _stop!”_

“Told you I could get them to confess,” Glimmer said, smug and quiet, and pecked Bow on the nose before (mercifully) standing and rounding on Double Trouble. “Now. You’re going to tell me _everything.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments/Concrit are always valued!


	4. Spending Time Together

I. A piece of paper with a target drawn on it in sticky, thick crayon. Holes pockmark the page, punctured by arrows, and the paper around the wax has faded from light damage. It hangs in a bedroom alongside other pages much like it.

II. The communications table with its map still turned on. It flickers every now and then, an almost imperceptible buzz of motion before the hologram returns to its intended state. Around the table, most of the chairs are pushed in, but two are left haphazardly shoved away. Traces of sweat that will need to be sanitized have dried on the outer rim of the table, and there is dirt tracked around its circumference.

III. A coil of rope, kept in a water-proof satchel and hidden at the edge of the ravine that cups Bright Moon Castle’s backside. It lies wedged between two rocks, safe from movement and discovery, and it is long, longer than anything that can be effectively stowed in an arrow, long enough to reach the castle’s peak, if need be. 

IV. Four boots, two with hearts, two with moons. They sit next to each other, the ones with hearts placed conscientiously in a neat line near the door, the ones with moons flopped carelessly where they were kicked. They are dusty from the outdoors, and unsuited to be placed upon a couch or bed.

V. The tracker pad, silent now, but blinking, two seconds between each light, with an unopened message. Will it be a video recording? Audio? A line of text to be read and responded to in kind. Who is to say? It must be opened, first.

VI. A suit and a dress, hung neatly side by side. They have not been worn in some time, but they are always worn together. On the dress, a faint stain from strawberry ice cream can still be located, if one knows where to look. On the suit, a thread is pulling loose from the top half’s hem, where unpracticed hands sewed over the careful cut that had been made to shorten the cloth.

VII. Two hands, intertwined.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments always welcome

**Author's Note:**

> Comments/Concrit always appreciated!


End file.
